ANTI-WAR protesters held an emergency demonstration in central London over the weekend, condemning the “illegal attacks” on Iran and demanding no British military action.

Protesters gathered in Westminster on Saturday after US and Israeli forces carried out a series of strikes on Tehran and other cities.

Defence Secretary John Healey repeatedly declined to say whether Britain believes the strikes were legal.

Asked multiple times by reporters today, Mr Healey declined to give a direct answer, telling the BBC: “Britain played no part in the strikes on Iran.

“We share, however, the primary aim of all allies in the region and the US that Iran should never have a nuclear weapon.

“It is for the US to set out the legal basis of the action that it took.”

He also declined to comment on whether Britain had refused the US permission to use British bases to strike Iran, telling Sky News: “I’m not going to get into, and you really wouldn’t expect me to get into discussions like that.”

The Stop the War Coalition said that the US-Israeli “murderous and reckless acts” would “lead to death and destruction in Iran,” and they threaten wider war across the region with “unimaginable consequences.”

“We must protest this madness and demand that our government takes no part and condemn Israel’s and the US’s catastrophic actions,” it said in a statement.

Trade unions also condemned the “illegal” bombing, with PCS general secretary Fran Heathcote saying the British government must not support US-led military aggression.

She said: “The world has seen the devasting impact of such Western imperial intervention in the Middle East and this programme of attacks is an example of failure … to learn from the past and to allow the Iranian people to have a voice.”

The union is calling for urgent international efforts to de-escalate tensions and prioritise diplomacy, peace and the protection of civilian lives.

RMT general secretary Eddie Dempsey said the attack “inches the world closer to a potential global war between superpowers.

“It is incumbent on the British government to not in any way support this US-led military aggression or to put our armed forces and civilian support staff in harm’s way,” he said.

“Disputes between nation states must be settled by diplomacy and peaceful dialogue through lawful international institutions not warmongering and assassinating other countries’ leaders.”

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Green Party leader Zack Polanski also branded the attacks “illegal and unprovoked,” telling the BBC: “We’ve got a Defence Secretary saying that diplomacy is the long runway we need, but won’t condemn Donald Trump when he attacks a country and assassinates its leader.

“That’s the law of the jungle. That’s an end to international law.

“I’m worried the UK is going to be pulled into another illegal war.”

Mr Polanski said he has seen “no evidence” Britain took the process of diplomacy and negotiation with Iran seriously before it was attacked.

Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney called the Iranian government an “undemocratic, repressive regime,” but also warned that “all nations must abide by the international rules-based system, and it is for the United States and Israel to now demonstrate how this intervention is compatible with that position.”

“The international community should now work together and at pace on a solution which focuses on de-escalation, ensures there is no additional loss of life and which provides a diplomatic route to ending the nuclear ambitions of the Iranian regime,” he said.

Labour MP and Commons foreign affairs committee chairwoman Emily Thornberry said she did not think the US-Israeli strikes were legal, and said Britain should resist being drawn into a conflict in the Middle East.

Former British national security adviser Lord Peter Ricketts told the BBC the strikes were not “legal in a way that the UK would recognise,” adding there was “no imminent threat to the US.”

He said Israel had “pre-empted any risk that the US-Iranian negotiations were going to reach some sort of deal.”

Tehran had agreed to a deal shortly before the strikes.

In a joint statement with the leaders of France and Germany on Saturday, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer condemned Iran’s retaliation and urged Tehran to “refrain from indiscriminate military strikes” and “seek a negotiated solution.”

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper also condemned “indiscriminate Iranian strikes” after a fire broke out at a luxury hotel in Dubai.

No comments were made on the civilian casualties in Iran, with the PM instead saying the US and Israel “struck targets.”

Speaking from Downing Street today, Sir Keir said that Britain had not been involved in the strikes, but had subsequently deployed aircraft “as part of co-ordinated regional defensive operations to protect our people, our interests and our allies.”